rememberAn affair to

Churches hewn from rock by angels, gladiatorial rites, hand-fed hyenas, an African Camelot... Jennifer Byrne discovers in

Ethiopia a land far richer and more mysterious than her most romantic imaginings.

Lalibela, Ethiopia

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GoinG to EthiopiA is a bit like falling madly in love with a stranger, only to discover that everyone else already knows him, or thinks they do. And not in a good way. So, perhaps a few points of clarification. to start with, there is no famine. that was 30 years ago, when Bob Geldof was still young. nor are visitors likely to be kidnapped by tribes or terrorists. And no, the country is not one vast, dull desert. Being hauled by a grumpy mule up a 3800m mountain to see an ancient rock-hewn monastery,

from which i stare out on a shimmering vision of ridges and valleys stretching to the horizon, i can certainly attest to this.

Ethiopia is not rife with Rastafarians (although dreads are big). And while it’s in a tough neighbour-hood, bordering Somalia and both Sudans, this eastern end of the Saharan Sahel is a far calmer place than the cauldron of Mali to the west.

A negative beginning, perhaps, but isn’t that how it is with new love? Dismiss the doubts and share

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es the joy. And Ethiopia has so much to offer. Bisected by the magnificent Rift Valley, it is beautiful, diverse and almost unimaginably old. it is rich in wildlife, an ornithologist’s dream. its culture runs deep and long, part-African, part-Arabian, although Ethiopians are so fiercely themselves that they run on both a different calendar (it’s 2006 there) and different clock from the rest of the world. the famous socio-biologist Edmund o Wilson theorised that Africa has a special pull on people because, even if we don’t think about it, we sense this was our species’ first home.

i go to Ethiopia with a girlfriend, just the two of us with an in-country guide, and choose a back-to-front route that takes us finally to the historical route in the mountainous north, far and away the number-one magnet for visitors to Ethiopia. this is where to find the fairytale holy city of Lalibela, which is home to those spectacular

Church carved from rock, Lalibela

Reading the Bible

monolithic rock-cut churches many regard as the eighth wonder of the world. here, too, is the old imperial capital of Gonder with its 17th-century castles and palaces, Africa’s version of Camelot. And the vast Lake tana, source of the Blue nile, its cool waters studded with tiny forested islands hiding brightly painted monasteries dating back as far as the 14th century. We travel for three weeks, as much time as we have, but not enough to see even half the country’s nine World heritage sites.

WE ChooSE to head south first, bowling along in a 4WD on the surprisingly good highway from Addis Ababa, because it is the fantastical pre-industrial world of the Ethiopian tribes i most want to see. the trigger was a footloose friend, an ex-diplomat currently on his fifth year of pin-in-the-atlas-type travel, who had

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sent an electrifying email about his experiences in the lower omo Valley, along the lines of “see it while you can”. Exotic scarcely begins to describe the lives and customs of the dozen or so tribes that have lived there for centuries, surviving off their cattle and ritually adorn-ing themselves with jewellery of beads, bone and metal.

it’s astonishing country, the Africa of hollywood films – think the final shot of The Constant Gardener, where Ralph Fiennes broods beside Lake turkana on the Ethiopia-Kenya border. in this bleak but beautiful landscape lives the warlike Dassanech tribe, who serve us a brew made with dried coffee husks. their small, igloo-shaped animal hide and corrugated iron huts heat up so quickly we last only 10 minutes inside. the Mursi wear huge lip plates and scarify and paint their limbs and torsos, while the women of the hamer twist their hair with ochre, water and fat to create copper-coloured ringlets.

polygamy is pretty much universal among the tribes, the standard bride price being 40 head of cattle plus an AK-47 rifle – both a status symbol and weapon of first resort in regular intertribal wars. Disconcertingly, men wear them slung casually round their necks

and charge by the click for photographs. Even more confronting – and let’s be honest, fascinating – are the initiation ceremonies, rituals ranging from wild gladiatorial stick-fights to the famous hamer bull-jumping, when young men strip naked and leap back and forth across the backs of a line of cattle to prove their manhood. the women, meanwhile, chant and call for the maza (those already initi-ated) to whip their bare backs. it’s hard to watch, even worse to hear the swish of the long thin canes, although the scars are worn with pride by the women as signs of devotion and support for the men.

however, modernity looms. the national government is quietly encouraging the tribes to abandon what it describes as “bad customs” such as whipping and the abduction of brides. And the international oil companies sniff black gold in the valley. Already, the air in places is thick with dust as oil-exploration companies carve out roads and build makeshift camps. For now, though, it’s an anthropologist’s wonderland and hard to imagine a sight more colourful or exciting than market day in the omo, when all groups converge to trade, flirt and flaunt their decorated bodies. ph

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Lip service: Mursi tribeswoman

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Pilgrims at Genata Maryam Church, Lalibela

EthiopiA iS A huGE pLACE, as large as Spain and France combined. Vast spaces, monumental skies, yet so populous (85 million) that the landscape is always full. there is always someone working the fields or trudging to market, a child herding goats, a woman bent under a load of firewood. Much is changing in Ethiopia, but it’s still an agricultural economy with most people being subsistence farmers or pastoralists.

We leave our driver in the south and fly north-east to the ancient hilltop city of harar, 500km east of Addis Ababa. it is the fourth-holiest city of islam, according to unESCo, with 82 mosques tucked away in a maze of alleyways and gates so narrow you can get round only on foot. the city is like a jewel box, its whitewashed buildings splashed with turquoise, purple and aqua. piles of spices glow in the sun and old women in bright silks serve cups of strong-scented coffee. Kites swoop from the parapets to seize hunks of goat and camel from the hands of butchers. Rows of tailors madly peddle their ancient machines in a street named after the sound they make, Girgir.

harar’s two most famous residents were French poet Arthur Rimbaud, who spent much of the last 10 years of his life here as a coffee merchant, and haile Selassie – or, to give him his formal title, his imperial Majesty the Conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah, King of Kings, Elect of God. Selassie is a contentious figure, except among Rastafarians who still regard him as a god. it’s fascinating to wander the childhood home of the emperor who ruled Ethiopia for more than 40 years (1930-74), claiming direct descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

the biggest celebrities in harar now, though, are the “hyena men” who gather outside the city’s crumbling walls at dusk. they bring buckets of meat and call to the creatures hulking in the shadows by name, feeding the hyenas with sticks, hands, even straight out of their own mouths. Later, i’m told, when the city sleeps, they send the scavengers out to prowl through the streets, collecting food scraps and rubbish. Can it be true? i wake early one morning and swear i hear a heavy panting and the scrabbling of paws just outside my window.

the north, where Christianity has thrived since the fourth century, is an amazing contrast. We’d seen the rituals of the tribes, heard the calls of harar’s muezzin, now it was an all-senses carnival as tens of thousands gathered in the ancient city of Gonder to celebrate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. timkat is the grand-daddy of Ethiopia’s festivals. Worshippers dance, chant and drag gaudy floats through the winding streets, following replicas of the Ark of the Covenant to a vast pool for a dawn service. the party culminates in a mass clamber down the stands to jump in the holy water and be blessed.

our adventure ends at the mountain fastness of Lalibela, surrounded by those exquisite churches built, legend goes, with the help of angels. Legends are real here. Guides give two expla-nations for everything – one the historians and archaeologists believe, and the mystical account. Visitors may choose, but for the locals, it’s obvious. Lalibela is the second Jerusalem, home to miracles.

For airfares to Ethiopia call Qantas on 13 13 13 or visit qantas.com